Birthday Suprises

Happy Birthday to Me!

I LOVE THIS PICTURE OF US!

Today is my 29th Birthday, we pretty much celebrated on yesterday because G was supposed to be out of town on business travel. He ended up being home, but we had already planned on celebrating on Sunday, and I think he was pretty much dying to give me my present already, so we celebrated yesterday. 

Back story - G has been planning my 30th birthday for many, many months now and all I knew about it was it was a trip that was about 3 weeks long and that I'd find out on my 29th birthday what it was. I knew my parents and his parents were going and knew about it (and a bunch of our friends knew about it as well) and it seemed like everyone was anxious for me to know about it so we could talk openly about it. I had guessed it was some sort of cruise since I love cruising and that it was somewhere that involved flying to since I know G is saving all his travel miles / hotel points for this trip. 

He told me he was going to video record me opening my gift, I had NO idea what I was in for. I opened my gift to find a 252 piece puzzle, and he said by the time I was done putting it together I would know where we were going for my birthday next year. The kicker, I had to put it together without knowing what the picture looked like. He said it took him 40 mins to do with knowing the picture and his parents did it together without knowing the picture and it took them an hour and 45 minutes. Well, I finished it in about 1 hour and 40 minutes (probably would have been a little faster if I didn't let EM "help" before her nap, about 45 minutes into it). He made a pretty cool time lapse video of it too! 

getting started with EM as my "helper"

in process

I DID IT!

the picture of the puzzle, not in puzzle form

So my guesses were both right, it was a cruise and it is overseas. The best part is though, it is a transatlantic cruise, which is something we've both (and our sets of parents too) have been dying to do, so now I get to do some european ports and a transatlantic cruise, all in one! This surely knocks off some of my 40 before 40 list items as well! I'm soooo excited and LOVED the way G revealed it to me. He's so creative and thoughtful when it comes to gifts. (I'm more of a "let me buy it off of your wish list" type of person). We'll be flying into Barcelona  and staying there for a few days (yes, both of the girls are coming with us) and then hoping on a ship which makes stops in Malaga, Spain; Gibraltar, UK; and Funchal (Maderia), Portugal and then we'll spend quite a few days at sea before stopping in Nassau, Bahamas and ending in Tampa. Both sets of parents and our good friends Ryan and Jenny and their daughter, will be joining us on this adventure! 

Sunday night we went to dinner at my favorite place, Kobe's Japanese Steakhouse (we go for almost every birthday between the two of us and most of our friends)! A few of my friends and my in-laws were able to join us for dinner. After dinner, my in-laws came back to the house for cake and we called it an early night. I had a great day celebrating, even if it was a day early!

We didn't do much today but overall had a nice day too. G and I took a nice walk this morning, then we went to lunch with his dad and Nan. I then ran a few errands and relaxed in front of the TV. I'm about to go pick EM up from school and hit up Chick-fil-a for dinner (yes, this was what I wanted tonight LOL). 

Just want to thank everyone for all the birthday wishes (and for keeping my birthday surprise, an actual surprise for so many months)! I feel so loved between my family and friends!! Cheers to my last year before 30!